


A Haunting In Hilltop

by TheLiveshipParagon



Category: Constantine (TV), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), Hellblazer
Genre: British Slang, F/M, Flirting, Ghost Hunters, Haunted Houses, Haunting, Magic, One Shot, Poltergeists, Rituals, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 03:55:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18328127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLiveshipParagon/pseuds/TheLiveshipParagon
Summary: Imagine discovering the new home you’ve moved into is haunted and John Constantine investigates it.*Please do not replicate my work without my express permission*





	A Haunting In Hilltop

**Author's Note:**

> Based on an imagine I saw from @anotherimaginescollection
> 
> (Possible proof reading errors)
> 
> Happy reading!  
> x

Artwork by @upryicaart on Tumblr

 

At first you were excited to move into your new home.

After finding out your partner had cheated on you, the last thing you wanted was to stay in the house that you’d built together. Too many memories, too many reminders. Everyday you were in the spare room, you hated your existence and it was hard to move on. You’d see evidence of their infidelity in everything and you felt suffocated by your own insecurities as a result of it.

Now you were free and the house was an absolute steal to boot.

You moved all your boxes in, setting up the space to be uniquely yours, devoid of anything that was theirs. This was your new start.

The first couple of weeks you loved your independence. You were healing, you were becoming sociable again. This was definitely the right thing for you.

The next month things started happening that you couldn’t explain. Items wouldn’t ever be where you left them. One time your hair brush completely vanished from one room to appear downstairs. Your necklace would end up hanging from one of the wardrobe handles.

Maybe your ex knew where you lived and was deliberately trying to fuck with you? Working off that logic, you searched high and low in all the spaces of the house for any evidence of someone creeping around but there was nothing. The loft was distinctly wedged shut so you had no chance of seeing what was up there.

Then the eerie feeling started.

You’d be fast asleep when all of a sudden you’d jerk awake, convinced there was danger. The room would be pitch black but you’d always get the creeping sensation that something was looking at you. If you flipped the lamp on, there’d be nothing there though.

It always happened at 4:23am.

Your work life started to suffer from the lack of sleep so you changed your hours to work the late shift. Maybe if you slept during the day, you’d avoid the time where you kept getting scared awake.

That didn’t help either though.

During your day time naps, you’d hear random crashes and bangs. Things would be knocked off the counters, the dressers, the tables. Doors would suddenly be closed when they were open before.

Maybe you were having a breakdown and you’d not really processed what had happened with your ex?

Three months into living there was when you first saw it. You’d gotten back at 5am from work before settling into your living room armchair, willing yourself not to go to sleep. The exhaustion got the better of you though and you slowly drifted into fitful slumber.

Crash!

You bolted upright, running towards the source of the noise, up and up to the first floor where you saw at the end of the corridor, the loft hatch wide open and a ladder spilled down to the carpet. You didn’t quite understand how. Every time you’d try to yank the hatch open, it’d been stuck fast and now it was open?

Tentatively, you flipped every light on nearby before setting up the torch on your phone and wandering forward, placing a hesitant foot on the first rung. You really didn’t want to do this. Every single horror film you’d ever seen came flooding back to you and you were scared some psycho had been living up in your roof for the past few months.

Taking a deep shaky breath, you ascended the ladder, your phone shaking in your hand as your head crested over the hatch opening and you aimed the torch around yourself.

You saw there were boxes and bits of antique furniture around and you swivelled your body to see all around you. Your torchlight landed on a decrepit bed in the far corner with tatty covers and more and more you felt your theory about someone living above you was coming true.

That was, until you heard the noise.

It was a soft rattle, like someone couldn’t breathe properly. You looked where you’d just spun around from to see the shape of a woman in seventies clothing, browns and beiges with old pattern trends. Her hair hung lank around her face but as she looked up, you saw there  _was_  no face. There was only a skull with the blankest sockets for eyes. The thing stretched out one bloodied, gnarled hand towards you before disappearing and reappearing a little closer.

Close up, you could see her form wasn’t completely solid. Bits of her body were almost mist-like, holes right where bone should’ve been.

You wanted to scream so badly but nothing was coming out. You were too transfixed by the figure approaching you.

When it appeared slightly closer again, your brain kicked back in and you tried to scramble down the ladder but your foot slipped in your haste. You ended up pitching backwards, knocking your head on the hatch opening before thudding down to the corridor with a loud thump, all the wind knocked out of you.

As you lost consciousness, all you saw was the skeletal face peering down at you from the loft.

 

**

 

You woke up sometime around midday, your head throbbing painfully and your back protesting as you sat up.

The ladder was gone and the loft was sealed up once more. You weren’t sure if you’d dreamt it or not. But why would you have been on the floor otherwise? You had to have hit your head because there was a large bruise forming.

Did you really see what you think you saw or had you finally snapped?

You did what any sane person would do…you looked on the internet for advice.

After scrolling through a few ghost forums, you found one that looked vaguely less crazier than the others. It was a local Cheshire/Lancashire one with links to people’s stories, some of whom provided picture and video evidence.

The deciding factor for you to post your own story came when you read someone’s account that sounded similar to yours: things moving, strange noises, waking up for no reason etc.

**HilltopHaunt: Hi, I’ve experienced the same things as others. Stuff is moving around, things are getting thrown, I keep hearing things bang shut, I’m always awake at 4:23am feeling like someone is watching me and last night my locked loft was open and I saw this thing that looked skeletal up there that disappeared and reappeared. Please tell me I’m not losing my marbles.**

You waited precisely an hour before you got a response.

**PettyDabbler: Can you describe what the thing looked like in better detail?**

**HilltopHaunt: 1970s dress, long dark hair, skeletal face, bloody hands and there were holes in it that seemed misty as weird as that sounds. Kept moving towards me by disappearing.**

**PettyDabbler: Sounds like a genuine spook that. Was your loft always closed off?**

**HilltopHaunt: Yeah I’ve never been in it. Had a bed up there when I checked. Now it’s wedged shut again.**

**PettyDabbler: Lemme guess. House was crazy reduced in price?**

**HilltopHaunt: Yeah…**

**PettyDabbler: I’ll send you a private message.**

Then you got a tiny box pop up on the screen.

**PettyDabbler: You’re not going mental. Sounds like your bog standard ghost. Did it seem threatening?**

**HilltopHaunt: I have no idea. It started coming for me but I fell off the ladder before it could grab me.**

**PettyDabbler: This will sound absolutely nuts but I get rid of spooks for a living. I’ll give you my number and there’s no pressure to ring me or owt but if you need me ring me. I know some folks are a bit scared to meet strangers from the internet so the ball is entirely in your court luv.**

**HilltopHaunt: Thank you for believing me. I’ll be in touch.**

**PettyDabbler: No problem. Just don’t be a hero. If things get dicey. Run.**

That was where you left the conversation, with a stranger’s number and more questions than answers.

 

**

 

You woke up on your day off at 4:23am, that same feeling you were being watched. The moon was full outside and casting silvery light in over the top of your bedroom curtains and you could see a humanoid figure standing at the edge of the bed.

Your heart started hammering and you’re sure you gasped because it suddenly looked up. To your horror, it started crawling onto the bed, the mattress bowing under the weight and that same eerie rattle sounding out from it. You flung the duvet cover over it before grabbing your phone from the nightstand and fleeing outside into the garden.

You made the phone call to PettyDabbler instantaneously, not even knowing if they were awake as you saw in the top window of the house, the same lank haired skeletal figure peering down at you, one hand pressed to the window pane.

“Yullo?” came a male sleepy voice.

“I’m sorry, is this PettyDabbler?” you try and keep your voice calm.

“Aye,” the voice is a little more alert and you can pick out a Scouse accent. “Which one is this? BramStroker or HilltopHaunt?”

“HilltopHaunt,” you reply immediately. “I’m sorry for the late night call but I didn’t know what to do. I just woke up and this thing was trying to crawl up my bed. I ran outside.”

“Tell me your address luv, I’ll come right over.”

“Copperfields, Hilltop,” you babble, throwing all caution to the wind about internet safety.

“Right, stay outside if you can. Should take me fifteen minutes if I’m cheeky with some speed limits.”

“It’s looking at me,” you murmur, still watching the top floor window.

“Whatever you do, don’t go back inside,” the voice is firmer now. “That’s what it wants. I’m on me way. Just pulling me coat on. Stay there.”

Then the line clicks off.

You feel exposed, standing outside in the summer night air in just your PJ shorts and your vest top, staring at your house like a mad woman and shivering. You never took your eyes off the window, the figure just pawing at the glass and cocking its head now and then

It feels like an age until you hear a car trundling around the corner and it stops right by you. You finally look away to see a blonde man with rakish stubble exit the vehicle, a tan trenchcoat whipping around in the breeze before he comes over, a cigarette neatly tucked behind his ear.

“HilltopHaunt?” he asks.

You nod, “PettyDabbler?”

“Well I prefer John,” he smiles slightly. “John Constantine at your service.”

You tell him your own name before looking back to the window and to your surprise, there’s nothing there any more.

“It’s vanished,” you remark, pointing. “It was right there.”

“Some ghosties get shy when others come and sometimes some ghosties like to fuck with a person’s mind and make them believe they’re going mental,” John follows your gaze. “It’ll be back. You look freezing, luv. Not that I don’t appreciate the look but want me coat?”

“Please.”

He gallantly whirls his trenchcoat off before putting it around your shoulders and you can feel the warmth, the slight scent of aftershave and cigarettes wafting along with it.

“Not a bad look,” he smirks before rolling up the sleeves of his shirt and going to fetch a bag from the car. “Thanks for trusting I’m not a nutter. It’s hard to help people sometimes when everyone is so bloody cynical.”

“I’d rather like not to die before I’m thirty,” you remark. “I’ll take my chances with the internet stranger.”

“I like you,” he snorts. “Right then, shall we go inside?”

You walk with trepidation up to the door and open it, going inside and John breezes past, spinning to take in all of the house.

“Upstairs is it? This loft?” he gestures.

“Yeah, end of the corridor,” you nod.

You hide behind John as he ascends the stairs, looking towards the loft hatch and wondering what exactly he was going to do. He took the pole and tried to yank open the door but just like before, it wouldn’t budge.

“Hmm,” he muses in annoyance. “That’s not good.”

“What?”

“It’s a strong one,” he murmurs before looking back at you. “Right lass, I’m gonna do something that may freak you out a little bit so bear with me.”

“Freak me out more than a ghost?”

“Fair point,” he concedes before chanting something and light starts emanating from his palms, directed towards the hatch door.

You’re completely shocked when the door falls open and the light from his hands fades away.

“Umm…..what was that?” you ask.

“Magic,” he winks at you. “I know I know, head fuck right?”

“Is it hard to do?”

He starts laughing, almost doubling over, “You know, in the last ten years of me helping folks out on the internet, nobody’s ever asked me that before? Usually they just scream or they faint or summat.”

“Forgive me for being curious when I may not live much longer,” you sass.

“Alright, calm down luv,” he hides his smirk, turning around just as the ladder is extended out and into his face, knocking him backwards.

John sprawls out, dazed on the floor and you rush over to him, looking up and seeing that thing staring down at you before its hands start grasping the rungs and climbing down like a spider.

“Shit!” you cry, dragging John away from the ghost and hoping he’d gain his senses back soon. “Come on!”

He shakes his head, scrambling to his feet before pulling out some herbs from a bag, lighting them on fire with an old fashioned Zippo lighter and flinging it towards the contorting spectre. It shrieked horrifically before vanishing in an ethereal mist.

“Is that it?” you ask.

“Nah, just buys us some time. Come on, we need to get up there,” he points to the loft. “If we can find the thing it’s clinging onto rather than moving on, we can destroy it. Stay with me, lass. Don’t get separated.”

He runs towards the ladder, pulling you with him as he climbed. You could hear that death rattle sounding out faintly from your bedroom and you hurried your pace, scrambling up into the roof. John says something and the whole loft is illuminated by a bright light.

You can see properly now that it looked like a bedroom but the most depressing one you’d ever seen. There was even a chamber pot, slightly cracked and yellowed underneath the bed.

“Christ,” John says, looking around. “Well this is not good at all.”

“Was someone locked up here?” you ask him incredulously.

“To make a spirit this strong requires either a wickedly evil personality or a lifetime of abuse,” John sighs. “We need to find the trigger item and quickly. No doubt nobody ever tried before now and just moved out of the house when things got too spooky.”

“What does it look like?” you move towards the boxes.

“No idea. Could be a doll, a diary, an ornament. You’ll know if it’s the right one because the ghost will appear. They’re right possessive. Come on, luv, we’ve not got much time before they re-materialise and a lass as pretty as you…would be a shame if you died.”

“Are you always this flirtatious on the job?”

“Only with people I like,” he grins before running to the other side and diving into the drawers of the furniture.

You scramble through the boxes, trying to touch everything and seeing if the thing appears again. There’s newspapers and old photos but nothing seems to be working.

“Fucking hell!” comes a shout and you look up to see John clutching a tattered copy of The Magic Faraway Tree.

The ghost was suddenly coming for him, grasping him by the throat so he dropped the book and throwing him into the wall where he bounced heavily before smacking into the floorboards. He threw up his hand, a red rune appearing on the palm as he tried to chant but the thing was bearing down on him.

You didn’t know what to do. You had no clue how to handle this situation. You just ran forward, grabbing the book and the skeletal face snapped round to look at you. You’d just made yourself bait.

“Do your thing!” you yell as you rushed to the other side of the room but the woman blocked your path in seconds, forcing you to halt your tracks.

“Destroy the book!” John shouts, lighting more herbs and chucking it hard towards your direction.

You catch the bundle, burning your hand as you thrust it towards the ghost and it vanishes with an ear splitting scream. You drop the herbs, ignoring the stinging sensation in your fingers before you start tearing pages out.

Some unseen force pitches you backwards and you slid across the floor, scuffing your elbows and thighs. It’s not working.

“John!” you shout out for him as the ghost appears above you, abnormally long fingers stretching down towards your chest.

“Bloody hell! Shit!” John casts a bolt of white light as he sprints towards you, the ghost shimmering out of view. “Gimme the book!”

You pass it over and he immediately uses his lighter, muttering something that causes the flame to burn larger and soon the pages are curling, blackening.

“No!” comes a female voice, a little stuttering.

You look up to see the ghost now has a face, a face of a woman that has the saddest eyes you’ve ever seen. Her cheeks are so gaunt and hollowed and she’s shaking her head.

“She’s manifesting completely now,” John tells you, gathering the other fallen pages and adding them to the pile that was burning. “Don’t feel sorry for her, luv. This is setting her free, free from this room.”

The ghost starts smouldering, the form flaking away into embers and ash until all you can hear is that rattle and a faint sound of crying. Then she’s gone.

“What happened to her?” you ask softly.

“My guess is her family kept her up here,” John sighs. “If the book was tethering her to the mortal plain and considering it were a children’s one, she’s probably never been allowed to develop into an adult. Maybe she had some disability they were ashamed of.”

“Poor girl,” you stand up before wincing at the pain in your hand.

“Ah, let me,” John reaches for you, sliding his palm along yours and instantly the red angry skin is gone. “Least I can do. That was quite a catch, luv.”

“School netball team,” you laugh a little. “So you do this stuff all the time?”

“Aye, ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, anything that goes bump in the night,” he nods before sparking up a cigarette and taking a deep drag. “I try and help where I can.”

“Thank you,” you say earnestly.

“Can thank me with a kiss if you like,” he smirks, the cocky attitude bleeding through.

He seems incredibly surprised when you throw your arms around his neck and plant one on his lips before pulling back.

“Bloody hell, didn’t expect that to actually work,” he laughs. “Not that I’m complaining or owt.”

“You saved my life,” you shrug. “And you’re easy on the eyes.”

“Oh I definitely like you,” he grins widely. “Let’s get outta this loft though, yeah? Gives me the creeps.”

 

**

 

You were in your living room by the door, a jumper thrown over you now to keep you warm. You’d made John a cup of tea to say thank you which he gratefully accepted.

“Gonna sleep a bit better now?” he asks.

“Probably not for the first couple of weeks but I’ll get there,” you sigh, sitting down next to him on the sofa. “I’m gutting that loft tomorrow. Repainting everything.”

“Smart bird,” he nods wisely. “Get rid of everything up there in case there’s more spooks about.”

“How did you even get into a life like this anyway?”

“Dabbled in dark magic when I was youngster. Lot of bad things happened and I said I’d make up for it by helping whoever I could against the supernatural and the paranormal,” he leans back, sipping from the mug. “It’s not a bed of roses but it’s honest work.”

“Can I pay you anything?” you offer. “Can’t imagine it’s a big money spinner.”

“Nah, nothing from you, lass,” he screws up his face. “You’ve got enough on your plate. I read up on you when you first posted on that forum. Your ex is a fucking knobjockey.”

“That’s one word for them,” you snort. “So you stalked me, huh?”

“I needed to know if the spirit were someone attached to you or the house so I cover all me bases,” he shrugs. “Can’t blame a lad for being thorough when death is on the line.”

“Alright, I’ll let you off,” you wag a finger.

He smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling, “You’re doing really well with all this, you know? Most folks kick me out or chuck money at me and kick me out straight after.”

“Well they’re ungrateful then,” you frown. “I don’t know. I guess I should be scared that there are bad things out there but I also know they’re killable. I’m kind of just curious if that makes sense?”

“You’re like me, luv,” John pats your thigh with his hand. “Insane thirst for knowledge. I can appreciate that. Well then, I’d best be getting back. Got some sleep to catch up on and possibly another haunt to sort out if BramStroker gets back to me.”

“Okay then,” you stand up with him. “Thank you for everything.”

You walk to the door and you expect him to go but he just stands in the doorframe looking a little unsure before he turns around with a cocky smile.

“One for the road?” he winks.

“One what?”

“A kiss. A man could get addicted to kissing you very easily,” he leans arrogantly against the frame, his trenchcoat slung over one shoulder.

Your self confidence rises and you grab him by the tie, pulling him to you where his hands just mould themselves against your body as you kiss him. You should perhaps feel a bit shy about snogging a complete stranger but it feels right, natural. There was just something about John that you really liked and you knew you’d never see him again after this so….why not right?

“Is it wrong to hope for you to get in more trouble so I can come back?” he laughs.

“Come back any time you want,” you boldly offer.  “I’ll even make you tea.”

“Oh lass, I may just take you up on that,” he bites his bottom lip stealing another kiss. “Christ, guess I’d better go. Stay safe, luv.”

“You too, John.”

 

*

 

That was the story of how John Constantine started coming round for cups of tea, claiming he’d had bad days when really, you knew he just wanted to see you.


End file.
